Friday, July 25
(Previous entries available here)

Taking measurements in Trench A

Hello, Jane here again.

We are at the end of our third week of the four, so already the time to be thinking about the timing of filling the trenches back in again next week. Oh no, more backbreaking work for everyone! 

We have had a good week this past week.

The two trenches are now fully excavated to their deepest extent, and looking splendid, so, if you are around, come to our open day this Sunday and have a look.

The time capsule that Colin Renfrew’s team put in the bottom of the ditch in Trench C is on display in the Museum in Kirkwall, and we are thinking what we will put in for our time capsule. 

Bob McCulloch, and his partner Mary, who came from Stirling University to sample the sections, retrieved the samples successfully, and Bob had some interesting observations about the ditch having filled in very rapidly and perhaps being infilled deliberately – these issues will become clearer when the lab work has been done on the samples.

David Sanderson is here from SUERC, undertaking his sampling for dating purposes, and he will be writing to let you know how that is going. 

This excavation is more about the retrieval of samples and the results that will come after the fieldwork.

I say that because if any of us had had hopes of finding artefacts, we would have been sorely disappointed – unlike our friends at the Ness of Brodgar!!